Rookie MLA faces prospect of recall over HST

Ian Bailey Vancouver — From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

A rookie Liberal MLA from Kamloops is facing the prospect of recall if the ongoing anti-HST petition fails to reverse the tax, a petition organizer warns. But Terry Lake, elected MLA for Kamloops-North Thompson last May, said Tuesday he isn’t worried because he hopes voters will eventually accept the harmonized sales tax. “In a perfect world, we would have had more time to talk about this in the public realm and explain it to people before we had to go forward, but we didn’t have that opportunity,” he said. The petition process is part of a concerted effort, operating under rules established by the Recall and Initiative Act, that could force the government to hold a non-binding referendum on the HST or repeal the tax if the petition is signed by 10 per cent of registered voters in each of B.C.’s 85 ridings.

Mr. Lake declined to speculate on whether petition organizers, transitioning to a recall effort, could meet the recall threshold of securing the signatures of 40 per cent of his riding’s voters within a 60-day time frame. But Chad Moats, organizer of the anti-HST petition in Kamloops-North Thompson, was bullish. He said Tuesday that he and others are in the early stages of organizing a “Recall in the Fall” effort that will proceed if Mr. Lake does not change his position on the 12-per-cent HST. Mr. Moats said he fully understands a recall petition would require the recollection of signatures. “We have demonstrated with the HST petition that gathering 40 per cent of the registered voters will not be as difficult as many presume,” he said in an e-mail

Former Socred premier William Vander Zalm, who has been at the forefront of the anti-HST movement, said the situation reflects anger that could lead to similar recall efforts, though he said he was not specifically aware of any. Political scientist Norman Ruff, noting there has never been a fully successful recall effort, said even unsuccessful attempts could be traumatic for the embattled government. “Even if [recall proponents] don’t succeed, they’re engaging in a very powerful act of political intimidation,” said the professor emeritus with the University of Victoria.